Voters in Burlington, Vt., on Tuesday approved a non-binding ballot referendum calling for the city council to ask the Air Force to cancel its plan to bring 18 F-35 fighter jets to the Vermont Air National Guard base at Burlington International Airport. Opponents of the Air Force’s basing decision — whose efforts to block the move previously failed in both state and federal courts — say the fifth-generation combat aircraft would be too loud and could pose a safety threat in a densely populated area. Burlington Mayor Miro Weinberger said he would revisit the issue but added the city is “a long way” from making a request to the Air Force to change its plans, reports VTDigger.VTDigger photo by Bob LoCicero Dan Cohen AUTHORread more

WILMINGTON, MA — The Department of Public Works began site work for the Pickleball Courts at Town Hall (Palmer Park) on Monday morning and is expected to continue all week.On Friday, May 11, a crane will be on site for the purpose of removing larger trees. As a result, the basketball court and playground area will be off limits between the hours of 7am. and 4pm.In the event work is not completed on Friday, work will resume on Friday, May 18.Town Meeting voters approved funding for three pickleball courts at Saturday’s Annual Town Meeting.Unsure what Pickleball is? Learn more about the sport by watching this video from the Wilmington Recreation Department HERE.(NOTE: The above announcement is from the Town of Wilmington.)Like Wilmington Apple on Facebook. Follow Wilmington Apple on Twitter. Follow Wilmington Apple on Instagram. Subscribe to Wilmington Apple’s daily email newsletter HERE. Got a comment, question, photo, press release, or news tip?Share this:TwitterFacebookLike this:Like Loading… RelatedTHE WAIT IS OVER: Pickleball Courts To Open At Palmer Park This Wednesday, September 26In “Community”Wilmington To Build 3 Pickleball CourtsIn “Government”NOW HIRING: Town’s Highway Division Is Hiring An Equipment OperatorIn “Business”read more

Get out your dancing shoes and wear your masks. It’s time to raise money for scholarships for students attending our great Mississippi HBCUs. On April 8, from 7:30 p.m. to 11:30 p.m. at Martin’s Crosswinds, 7400 Greenway Center Drive Greenbelt, Md. 20770, a fundraiser will be held to provide scholarships to students from four Mississippi HBCUs: Tougaloo College, Jackson State University, Alcorn State University and Mississippi Valley State University. For more information go to gwdcjsualum.wixsite.com/tjam2017.read more

The obsession among Indians with anything that people in the West do, has to stop, says young and popular designer Masaba Gupta, who hopes originality gets a fillip in the country.“We, as a nation, are generally very obsessed with the West and anything that they do. Anything that’s a fad, be it in garments or make-up looks, it immediately translates here,” said Masaba.The new-age designer, a former fashion director at the luxury label Satya Paul, says “People should speak up” against designers who blantantly copy others both from India and the West. “There are so many designers who take India as an inspiration, internationally and do such amazing things…I think people and the media should openly speak up about designers who are copying others because it’s very important that they do not give them that stamp of approval,” she added. Also Read – ‘Playing Jojo was emotionally exhausting’Masaba especially feels that Lebanese fashion designer Zuhair Murad, who is famous for making gowns, and national designers like Gaurav Gupta and Tarun Tahiliani, who have brought the concept of sari gowns on the runway, have been aped the most. She feels designers who copy “should not even get a place in fashion weeks”.“I think for the layman, it’s not plagiarism…for them it is a similar outfit. But people who are in fashion and people who understand it, should stand up and voice it out,” added the designer. Known for her extraordinary and quirky prints like the lipstick, cow and camera print, which have been one of the most copied print in Indian fashion market, Masaba said it is copying the silhouettes that bothers her more than anyone copying her designs. Also Read – Leslie doing new comedy special with Netflix“I get irritated when people copy my silhouettes…I do not get irritated when people copy my prints because that’s something I cannot control. It is very easy to copy my prints. You can just take a photograph here on the runway and replicate it in the next 10 days. You will have many fabrics in my print, but silhouettes is something original and that should not be copied. But I think designers should not copy the other designers’ style or print,” she said. Masaba, the daughter of actor Neena Gupta and cricket legend Vivian Richards, had launched her eponymous label in July 2009. Talking about how she came up with her famous quirky prints, the 26-year-old said: “I do not think I know anything else… I just know how to take objects, motifs, a certain theme and just turn it around and make it really fun.” Masaba feels that the youth “are biggest influencers of fashion today” and so she constantly tries to make something that can “define their style statement”.read more

Kolkata: West Bengal Housing & Infrastructure Development Corporation (HIDCO) is taking significant strides to enhance the ‘sweetness’ of the area around Misti Hub in New Town that had come up two months back. In December, a special “Great Indian Dessert Festival” will be organised to pamper the taste buds of the residents with items comprising a wide variety of custards, ice creams, puddings and other special confections available in other parts of the country. Also Read – Rain batters Kolkata, cripples normal lifeA private partner is being roped in for the Festival that will be held at the site of the motorcycle stand behind Misti Hub.”It is a strategy for giving the people of our state a concept of ‘Experiential Tourism’ which is evolving fast across the world. People will visit Eco Park, Misti Hub near Gate Number 3 of the park and at the same time, relish the popular desserts that are popular across the country,” said Debashis Sen, managing director of HIDCO. Also Read – Speeding Jaguar crashes into Mercedes car in Kolkata, 2 pedestrians killedThe campaign for the Festival has already started on social media and HIDCO is also planning to hold a Pudding Festival after this event.HIDCO has already made elaborate plans to spread the footprint of Misti Hub. Home delivery of sweets through app based food delivery services and packet menu (assorted sweets, in packets, for distribution in short meetings) for offices and corporate will be introduced soon.”We will design a special prestige carry bag with Misti Hub logo for common branding. This would be of cloth or jute consisting of three sizes small, medium and large. There are also plans to introduce discount coupons on Eco Park on selective days for those who buy sweets from Misti Hub,” an official said.It may be mentioned that HIDCO has already done a review of two months’ performance of Misti Hub and found that the shops had done very good business during this period. It has been decided that there will be bus branding to spread the word on Misti Hub.read more

DeepMind Health division has achieved a major milestone by developing an artificial intelligence system that can detect over 50 sight-threatening eye diseases with the accuracy of an expert doctor. This system can quickly interpret eye scans and correctly recommend how patients should be referred for treatment. It is the result of a collaboration with Moorfields Eye Hospital; the partnership was announced in 2016 to jointly address some of the current eye conditions. How Artificial Intelligence beats current OCT scanners Currently, eyecare doctors use optical coherence tomography (OCT) scans to help diagnose eye conditions. OCT scans are often hard to read and require time to be interpreted by experts. The time required can cause long delays between scan and treatment, which can be troublesome if someone needs urgent care. Deepmind’s AI system can automatically detect the features of eye diseases within seconds. It can also prioritize patients by recommending whether they should be referred for treatment urgently. System architecture The system uses an easily interpretable representation sandwiched between two different neural networks. The first neural network, known as the segmentation network, analyses the OCT scan and provides a map of the different types of eye tissue and the features of the disease it observes. The second network, known as the classification network, analyses the map to present eyecare professionals with diagnoses and a referral recommendation. The system expresses the referral recommendation as a percentage, allowing clinicians to assess the system’s confidence. AI-powered dataset DeepMind has also developed one of the best AI-ready databases for eye research in the world. The original dataset held by Moorfields was suitable for clinical use, but not for machine learning research. The improved database is a non-commercial public asset owned by Moorfield. It is currently being used by hospital researchers for nine separate studies into a wide range of conditions. DeepMind’s initial research is yet to turn into a usable product and then undergo rigorous clinical trials and regulatory approval before being used in practice. Once validated for general use, the system would be used for free across all 30 of Moorfields’ UK hospitals and community clinics, for an initial period of five years. You can read more about the announcement on the DeepMind Health blog. You can also read the paper on Nature Medicine. Read Next Reinforcement learning optimizes brain cancer treatment to improve patient quality of life. AI beats Chinese doctors in a tumor diagnosis competition. 23andMe shares 5mn client genetic data with GSK for drug target discoveryread more